Gloucester Alumni

By Gail McCarthy
Staff writer, Gloucester Daily Times

As a boy, Phil Cusumano loved to create drawings of automobiles, which he would send to General Motors in Detroit.
"I'd get letters back. One time when I was 15, a letter said I have a mastery of pencil sketching and they liked my designs. They even wanted to send me to school in California," recalled Cusumano, who went on to become a commercial fisherman. Later he would earn a living from commercial art, but he is now focused on the development of his fine art.

Cusumano, a sea captain and marine artist, is displaying prints of his most recent oil paintings at the Gloucester House restaurant. His work documents the fishing industry from the era of the tall ships to the present day.

The images range from life aboard a fishing dragger to Gloucester's skyline in 1905. A whale's tail breaking the water jumps out of another image, while a more serene image depicts a fishing vessel out of the water at the marine railways.

Born in Gloucester, he has been drawing for as long as he can remember. At an early age, Cusumano fished out of Gloucester on his father's commercial draggers. He fished during the summers and when he graduated from Gloucester High School in 1969, he fished full time for a while.

"But I was always drawing, even out at sea," he said.

He honed his skills when he studied at the Vesper George School of Art in Boston. He also worked with Rockport artist John Terelak.

Gloucester artist Jeff Weaver, an accomplished painter of both marinescapes and cityscapes, has seen the growth in Cusumano's canvases.

"He's achieved a high level of realism in these paintings of fishermen and he knows the material firsthand, and that shows," said Weaver. "For people interested in representations of fishing life, they're high quality and well done. I think he's striving for a realism, which he has achieved."

The fine art in which Cusumano is now enmeshed is a result of hard work, both from the realities of making a living from the sea and now recreating those scenes with a paintbrush.

"Having lived the life of his paintings and etchings, he invites the viewer on board to witness the many intricacies of fishermen's daily lives. His attention to detail, historical accuracy and personal knowledge are embodied in the specific nature of his works," according to a press release.

Cusumano has won many awards and acclaim for his paintings and mirror etchings. His paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, as well as private collections.

The East Gloucester resident signs all his paintings with the signature "Fillipo," which is his name as it appears on his birth certificate.

"I use that name for all my artwork," he said. "I was born with it and I was born with a love of drawing."

His prints may be viewed at the Gloucester House restaurant, Seven Seas Wharf, through the end of November.